Thinkerbell has bought back PwC Australia’s circa 10 per cent ownership stake weeks after the professional services firm was found to have misused confidential government tax information for commercial gain.

The “Measured Magic” agency, where "marketing sciences meets hardcore creativity", said PwC’s investment has provided Thinkerbell “the opportunity to build a world-leading agency and drive growth through powerful, creative ideas”, but that it had decided to part ways in the wake of the PwC controversy.

“This is a corporate conscious uncoupling, but to quote the song ‘every new beginning comes from some other new beginning's end’,” Thinkerbell chief thinker Adam Ferrier said. Ferrier, a consumer psychologist who maintains a hefty industry PR agenda and profile, will be uncomfortable with reputational risk from consultants - and a minority shareholder -behaving badly.

“Thinkerbell has grown from a few people in a shared house to an agency of around 160 people in Melbourne, Sydney and New Zealand. It’s time to part ways and explore our next adventure.”

Chief executive Margie Reid added: “It’s been an incredible journey these last five years and we have loved our time with PwC. However, all good things must come to an end and after much deliberation, we’ve mutually decided that it’s best to return PwC Australia’s stake back into Thinkerbell ownership. We thank everyone at PwC for their belief and support in Thinkerbell.”

PwC Australia was an early backer of Thinkerbell – the creative shop set up by Ferrier, Jim Ingram and Ben Couzens in 2017. It took a 10 per cent stake, then believed to be worth $300,000, in a business that has become one of the fastest growing creative shops in Australia.

PwC’s interest in the business was championed by Russel Howcroft, who at the time was PwC's Chief Creative Officer and a Partner in the firm's now defunct CMO practice. When formed in 2017 it had ambitious growth plans - PwC appointed a CMO advisory board which included former Telstra and Commbank marketing boss Mark Buckman, currently chair of TV ratings body OzTam and an independent board director at Sky NZ, ex-AANA CEO Sunita Gloster, now an advisor at Accenture and a non-executive director at Maurice Blackburn lawyers and ex-Suncorp customer boss, Mark Reinke, now Managing Director, Consumer, at News Corp.

But by mid 2020, Howcroft had left PwC for a gig as a talkback co-host at Melbourne's top rating 3AW. He later added to his morning talk show duties, joining his ally and former PwC CEO Luke Sayers as a Partner in the start-up boutique advisor and wealth management firm Sayers, backed by billionaire trucking magnate Lindsey Fox and Seek co-founder Andrew Bassat.  

In recent weeks attention has turned to Sayers over any knowledge he may have had in PwC's tax leaks scandal - he was CEO of PwC when the firm's head of international tax, Peter Collins, shared confidential government information on addressing multinational tax avoidance with corporate clients. Labor Senator Deb O'Neill has said it would be "quite implausible" that Sayers had no knowledge of the breaches. Sayers has rejected the assertions.        

PwC's CMO Advisory unit was eventually folded into its customer and experience team in 2021 after other senior figures, including Genevieve Reynolds, Nicky Bryson and Justin Papps, left the business to start a hybrid marketing strategy and "hub and spoke" comms agency backed by Sayers called Sayers Brand Management. Current Dentsu Group ANZ CEO Patricio De Matteis was also a PwC partner in its customer practice and Dentsu Media's Chief Investment Officer, Ben Shepherd, worked for the consulting firm.  

Thinkerbell said it will continue to support PwC Australia as one of its agency partners.

PwC Australia has been approached for comment.